Retailers count down to Christmas

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Tonight, when all the little chickadees are tucked up in bed,
thousands of Mr and Mrs Santas will make their first forays of the
season, venturing into those vast spaces where words like "magical"
and "dollars" are used in the same breath: Myer and David
Jones.

For 'tis Christmas again, folks, some 39 days before the fat man
crawls down the chimney, or squeezes through the heating ducts, a
time when each department store entreats us to join a "special" and
"exclusive" or "unique" shopping experience at their particular
store.

Tonight, you too can enjoy that unique experience, one that is
"filled with great gifts, great prices, great service and longer
hours to shop" if you are a Coles Myer FlyBuys cardholder, or one
that ranks you as "one of our very best customers" if you have a
David Jones store card.

You, and thousands more like you, will be able to sneak through
the doors of Myer stores at 5.30pm and David Jones at 6pm, just
after all the daytime crowds have left, and shop until the doors
close at 10pm.

Get used to it. Christmas is the peak trading period for
retailers, the make-it or break-it season when most stores reap all
their profits for the whole year.

This Christmas is coming at the tail end of one of the biggest
and most prolonged spending booms, and retailers say consumers are
still opening their wallets with apparently no fear of higher
mortgage payments in the new year or big credit card bills after
the festive season.

The Australian Retailers Association expects spending for
Christmas gifts will rise 7 per cent this year to $33 billion.

Letterboxes are already stuffed to overflowing with Christmas
marketing.

"What's usually hot at Christmas is driven by advertising and an
'I want too!' factor, like portable audio," Mr Uechtritz said.

"It's whatever everyone is advertising, whether it be Harvey
Norman or the mass merchants. Everyone sees that, and says 'Well, I
will buy that too'.

"But people buy for others before Christmas and for themselves
after that," he said, noting that sales of plasma-screen TVs would
probably rise sharply in January.

And it is not too early to start Christmas shopping. Oh, no.
According to a survey by the ARA, half of Victoria's shoppers have
already started buying gifts.

Another 35 per cent join the game in late November and early
December, and some 15 per cent are either extraordinarily
level-headed or hopelessly disorganised, leaving all their tasks to
the few days before December 25.

Among retailers, the tussle between market heavyweights Myer and
David Jones will be clearly defined this Christmas.

Amid concerns that Myer's turnaround may have stalled after it
scrapped its shareholder discount card in July, investors today
will want insights about the competitive dynamic from David Jones'
chief executive, Mark McInnes.

Mr McInnes is due to release October-quarter sales figures, and
some analysts believe David Jones may have beaten market forecasts
of 5 per cent sales growth in the first quarter.